Trolling The Internet With 'If I Were A Poor Black Kid'

This week, Forbes contributor Gene Marks wrote a story titled "If I Were A Poor Black Kid." As soon as I saw the title, I groaned. "This is going to be offensive," I thought. And it was. There have been many responses around the Web, including this and this and this and this and this and this and this.

In addition to staff writers (of which I am one), Forbes has a stable of 850+ writers who are "contributors" -- they get a little special tag on their pages that says, "The opinions expressed are those of the writer." Forbes pays these folks for the unique visitors and repeat visitors they attract. They are recruited based on their professional track records and journalism expertise, and editors don't usually see or approve of their posts in advance. Does having a payment model that rewards controversy encourage writers to bait readers with offensive material?

When I first became a blogger, I discovered very quickly that the Internet has pressure points -- inherently controversial topics that, if pressed, will cause the Internet to go crazy. This usually translates to lots of readers and page views. When I was a legal blogger writing for law students and corporate lawyers, those pressure points included race, gender, prestige, and fashion. The first two are universal; the latter two were, I think, unique to legal readers obsessed with hierarchies and rankings, and a profession in which women still argue about whether high heels should be required footwear in court.

Writing a post in one of these categories meant you were assured a rush of comments and readers. And if you wrote a story in one of these categories that contained offensive ideas, you were guaranteed even more readers. Case in point: The post to get the most traffic in my three years as an editor at Above the Law was about a Harvard Law student who entertained in an email the idea that "African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent."

While I was not paid by the page view, it was always gratifying to have a lot of people read and debate something that I wrote. That's what often drives "trolls" -- those anonymous commentators in blog comments and message forums that say outrageous things and make offensive claims; they desperately want a response. In an Internet world where money is made off of page views and user engagement, that can be good for business. And on a platform where writers are paid by visitor count, controversy and the resulting spike in readership can be lucrative for the writer.

Gene Marks has proved to be pretty awesome at trolling the Internet. He wrote a post shortly after Steve Jobs's death about how he was a jerk, and another about how most women will never become CEOs. Like his current post, these produced a lot of outrage -- and also a lot of traffic.

Marks's current piece would have been far less offensive had it not been about race, if it had instead been framed as a piece about poor kids in terrible schools and the resources on the Internet they can use to supplement their educations (assuming they have high-speed Internet access). Without the "if I were a poor black kid," this graf from his story is unobjectionable to me (except for the part encouraging kids to read Cliffs Notes):

“I’d use the free technology available to help me study. I’d become expert at Google Scholar. I’d visit study sites like Spark Notes and Cliffs Notes to help me understand books. I’d watch relevant teachings on Academic Earth, TED and the Khan Academy. (I say relevant because some of these lectures may not be related to my work or too advanced for my age. But there are plenty of videos on these sites that are suitable to my studies and would help me stand out.) I would also, when possible, get my books for free at Project Gutenberg and learn how to do research at the CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia to help me with my studies… I would use Skype to study with other students who also want to do well in my school."

So what keeps people from trolling? When your name and face are attached to what you write, you start to develop what our CPO Lewis D'Vorkin loves to call "a personal brand." I think of it as voice, authenticity, and reputation. As writers' bylines become bigger and our photos become more prominent, this comes to matter more. After a certain amount of race- and gender-baiting, you establish a "troll" brand and that brand may become so toxic that you become irrelevant. And that is the worst fate for any writer (and every troll): to be ignored.

(Disclosure: Author may well be guilty of Apple-baiting and gender-baiting with a guest post earlier this month about how Siri is Sexist.)